University Southern California Trojans
Unranked Pacific Men's Volleyball Team Sweeps No. 15 USC
April 10, 2004 | Men's Volleyball
April 10, 2004
The Pacific Tigers men's volleyball team kept their MPSF playoff hopes alive with a three game sweep of No. 15 USC on Friday, April 9, at the Alex G. Spanos Center. Game scores for the match were: 30-24, 30-25, 30-25.
With the win the Tigers improved to 8-18 overall and 4-15 in the MPSF, while the Trojans dropped to 6-20 overall and 4-15 in conference play.
Little went wrong for the Tigers as they attempted to right the ship late in the season in hopes of capturing the eighth and final spot in the MPSF tournament. The loss hampered USC's chances for that eighth spot, as Troy has only 3 matches left.
On top of a good team performance, the Tigers got one of the greatest individual performances in program history as senior Sean Rodgers had the match of his career, going 21-of-22 and finishing the night with no errors and a .955 hitting percentage. For good measure and to add a little depth to his game, Rodgers also tallied three blocks defensively.
The Tigers flew out of the gates in game one as they opened up the match with a 6-2 run that forced the Trojans to burn their first timeout. Pacific would open up a five point lead at 20-15 and never look back, finishing off the game on the first of three game-winning kills by Rodgers. Pacific outhit the Trojans .432-to-.176 in the game while also outblocking (4.0-to-3.0) and outdigging (12-to-8) USC.
Game two started a little slower for the Tigers as they were not able to jump out to a substantial lead at the beginning and even found themselves down for the first time in the match, 13-11. The Tigers responded behind the serving of junior Nils Dauburs, who produced two aces in a 4-0 run to regain the lead. The Trojans made a comeback to bring the lead down to one at 21-20 but quickly fell back down by four as Dauburs produced back-to-back kills.
The Tigers tried to blow out the Trojans in game three as they were able to take a 26-18 lead late, but faltered for the first time in the game, allowing USC to go on a 5-0 run to knock the lead down to three at 26-23. The Tigers kept their poise, and even waived off their coach from calling a timeout in order to show that they were in control, and took the game with a 4-2 run, capped off by Rodgers' 21st kill of the match.
Overall, the Tigers outplayed the Trojans in every statistical category, with the biggest discrepancy in the teams' hitting percentages (.430-to-.238). The Tigers never hit under .425 in any of the three games while attacking 107 times. Three Tigers reached double digits in kills with Rodgers (21), Dauburs (18) and junior Brian Zodrow (11). Freshman Mitch Hazelett had a career-high 55 assists in the game while also producing seven digs. Junior Mike Gawlik had a match-high 12 digs, while Dauburs led the team with 12 blocks.
The Trojans were led by Chris McKniff, who had 11 kills on the night, while Pedro Leal produced three blocks. Jeff Bailey added 10 kills.
